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ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output Xenophon’s Poroi: risk, rationality and enterprise in fourth-century Attica https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40137/ Version: Full Version Citation: Powell, Janet (2015) Xenophon’s Poroi: risk, rationality and enterprise in fourth-century Attica. [Thesis] (Unpublished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email Xenophon’s Poroi Risk, Rationality and Enterprise in Fourth-century Attica Janet Powell Department of History, Classics and Archaeology Birkbeck University of London Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy October 2014 2 Declaration I declare that this work is entirely my own Janet Powell The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. 3 Abstract This thesis is a reassessment of Xenophon’s strategies in the Poroi in the light of recent scholarly studies of the Athenian mining industry, trade, honours and the scholarly debate around the ancient capacity for economically rational decision- making. It argues that Xenophon wrote for a wider audience than the Athenian citizenry alone, and that an interpretation of the Poroi as proposing a beneficent regime in which slaves would live semi-autonomous lives cannot be sustained. Primarily it focuses on three specific strands. Using archaeological, epigraphic and literary evidence, it argues that judgements of Xenophon’s proposals as naïve underestimate the extent to which the heavy supply demands of the Laurion region reached into the lives of many Athenians from the elite to the artisan, and will have informed their reception of his plans with a financial literacy that obviated the need for detail. Using modern analyses of economic risk it explores the extent to which Xenophon acknowledged economic, physical and socially-constructed risks, demonstrating that despite their lack of detailed record-keeping, far from being unsophisticated in their judgement of the economic security of their commercial undertakings, Athenians had a developed recognition of risk and employed a variety of expedients to mitigate it. Finally, Xenophon’s proposals to use honours to encourage commercial activity are discussed in the light of scholarly judgements that such awards would be subversive, or reflected mid-century decline. A detailed analysis of honours offered both before and after Xenophon wrote shows that his proposals exploited a robust institution that had always adapted to reflect changing circumstances and that he set careful boundaries both to the number and the social background of potential recipients. In an early work of political economy which attempted to manipulate individual commercial activity in order to manage inter-state relationships, Xenophon’s ideas were innovative but sat within the Athenian democratic tradition. 4 For my parents Barbara and Keith Powell 5 Contents Acknowledgements 8 Abbreviations 9 Chapter One - Introduction 1.1 Chapter introduction 11 1.2 The need for a reassessment 12 1.3 Structure and argument of the thesis 13 1.4 Ancient economics? 17 1.4.1 The proposals 19 1.4.2 Politics and rhetoric 21 1.5 The text, its context and reception 22 1.5.1 Authorship 22 1.5.2 The date 24 1.5.3 Place of composition – Athens 28 1.5.4 The context – external relations 28 1.5.5 The context – internal politics and finances 30 1.5.6 Xenophon’s audience 37 1.6 Earlier scholarship 43 1.6.1 Economic debates 45 1.6.2 Scholarship overview 48 1.6.3 Conclusion 70 Chapter Two - The mines, their slaves, state income and rationality 2.1 Chapter introduction 73 2.2 The Laurion silver mines – introduction 73 2.2.1 Athenian mine slave ownership and the Poroi 76 2.2.2 The evidence for Attic mine operations – speeches, lease inscriptions and archaeology 78 2.2.3 The practicalities and processes of silver mining and refinement 80 2.3 State income from silver mining – introduction 83 2.3.1 The poletai leases – introduction 84 2.3.1.1 The Athenaion politeia and the poletai leases 84 2.3.1.2 Income to the state from the leases 87 2.3.1.3 The poletai leases – conclusion 91 2.3.2 Tax income on mining and associated activities – introduction 91 2.3.2.1 The pentedrachmia – the five drachma tax 94 2.3.2.2 The one twenty-fourth 95 2.3.2.3 The Attic demes 97 2.3.2.4 The Athenian mint 97 2.3.2.5 The furnaces 99 2.3.2.6 A tax on slave sales? 100 2.3.2.7 The eponion 102 2.3.2.8 Import/export taxes and harbour fees: the ellimenia and the pentekoste 103 2.3.2.9 The metoikion, xenicon and market taxes 104 2.3.2.10 State owned houses near the mines 105 2.3.2.11 The Hephaistic fund 106 2.3.2.12 Tax exemption 106 6 2.3.3 Income from mining and associated activities – conclusion 107 2.4 The Laurion slaves, Demosthenes’ Against Pantaenetus and the mining industry – introduction 108 2.4.1 The actions and transactions of the speech 109 2.4.2 Slave numbers, skills and costs 114 2.4.3 Choris oikountes? 122 2.4.4 The Laurion slaves – conclusion 127 2.5 Silver mining and economic rationality – introduction 128 2.5.1 Record keeping and financial analysis 129 2.5.2 Other case studies in the analysis of profitability and economic rationality 131 2.5.3 Record keeping and economic rationality in fourth-century Athens 135 2.5.4 The ore washeries and economic rationality 137 2.5.5 The Poroi and economic rationality – conclusion. Xenophon’s economically rational planning 140 2.6 Chapter conclusion 142 Chapter Three - Managing risk and promoting confidence 3.1 Introduction 144 3.1.1 Chapter outline 145 3.2 Definitions and derivations 146 3.3 Timodamos and the Edwardians 148 3.4 Definitions once more 152 3.5 Xenophon’s vocabulary 152 3.6 Subsistence crisis and maritime risk 154 3.6.1 Grain shortages 154 3.6.2 Local support networks 155 3.6.3 Investment rates of return 156 3.7. Xenophon and commerce 157 3.8 The risk-takers 160 3.8.1 Risks for Athens 160 3.8.2 The entrepreneurial polis 161 3.8.2.1 Silver deposits may become exhausted or lose their value 162 3.8.2.2 Slave hirers might default on their payments 163 3.8.2.3 The state-owned slaves might be stolen 164 3.8.2.4 The quality and quantity of slaves available may diminish 164 3.8.2.5 Competition from other slave owners 165 3.8.2.6 Lack of operators to hire the slaves 166 3.8.3 Risk and the entrepreneur 167 3.8.3.1 Overcrowding in the mines 168 3.8.3.2 Competition from the tribes 169 3.8.3.3 Envy 170 3.8.4 Risk and the non-Athenian 174 3.8.4.1 Commercial disputes 175 3.8.4.2 Return cargo and currency exchange 176 3.8.4.3 Military service 177 3.8.4.4 Non-Athenians in silver mining 177 3.8.5 Who pays? Risk and the wealthy Athenian 178 3.8.6 Who benefits? Risk and the poor 180 3.9 Conclusion 182 3.9.1 The risks 182 3.9.2 Exploring uncertainties 184 7 3.9.3 Strategies 185 3.9.4 Athenian approaches to economic risk 186 Chapter Four - Xenophon’s use of honours 4.1 Chapter introduction 189 4.1.1 Xenophon, Socrates, honour and usefulness 191 4.1.2 Philotimia 193 4.2 The honours and privileges Xenophon proposes 197 4.2.1 Xenia 198 4.2.2 Euergesia 199 4.2.3 Enktesis 200 4.2.4 Inscription 201 4.2.5 Proedria 203 4.2.6 Further aspects of Athenian honours 204 4.2.7 The introduction of the hortatory intention clause 204 4.3 The Poroi and fourth-century decline? 207 4.3.1 Isocrates and decline 209 4.3.2 Crisis and decline? 211 4.4 Athenian honouring in practice 215 4.4.1 Honours to non-Greeks 215 4.4.2 Honours and trade 216 4.4.2.1 Traders and status 217 4.4.2.2 Honours awarded to traders in the later fourth century 222 4.4.3 Honours for Athenians 223 4.4.4 The language of praise 224 4.4.5 The quality of ships and merchandise 227 4.5 Enktesis again 230 4.5.1 Enktesis for religious and community groups 230 4.5.2 Enktesis for individuals 234 4.5.3 Enktesis and proxenia 236 4.5.4 Proxenia and metics 240 4.5.5 Enktesis conclusion 242 4.6 Aeneas Tacticus 243 4.7 Chapter conclusion 244 Chapter Five – Conclusion 254 Bibliography 261 8 Acknowledgements I cannot identify when and where my passion for Ancient Greece first arose, although it was nurtured by the English, Theatre and Philosophy Departments of the University of Warwick in the 1980s. However I can clearly pinpoint the moment when I decided to do something more formal about it, gazing at a white ground lekythos in the Ashmolean Museum,1 a moment which led directly to the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck. My thanks must begin there, in acknowledgement of its unique combination of an outstanding research environment and a practical understanding of the particular challenges facing part-time students.